What should court bear in mind while appreciating evidence of trafficking victim? Supreme Court answers

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the conviction of one KP Kirankumar alias Kiran, a man from Bengaluru, in a child trafficking case.

While doing so, court has enlisted what court should bear in mind while appreciating the evidence of a minor victim of trafficking:

i. Her inherent socio-economic and, at times, cultural vulnerability when the minor belongs to a marginalised or socially and culturally backward community.

ii. Complex and layered structure of organised crime networks which operate at various levels of recruiting, transporting, harbouring and exploiting minor victims. Such organised crime activities operate as apparently independent verticals whose insidious intersections are conveniently veiled through subterfuges and deception to hoodwink innocent victims. Such diffused and apparently disjoint manner in which the crime verticals operate in areas of recruitment, transportation, harbouring and exploitation make it difficult, if not impossible for the victim, to narrate with precision and clarity the interplay of these processes as tentacles of an organised crime activity to which she falls prey. Given this situation, failure to promptly protest against ostensibly innocuous yet ominous agenda of the trafficker ought not to be treated as a ground to discard a victim’s version as improbable or against ordinary human conduct.

iii. Recounting and narration of the horrible spectre of sexual exploitation even before law enforcement agencies and the Court is an unpalatable experience leading to secondary victimisation. This is more acute when the victim is a minor and is faced with threats of criminal intimidation, fear of retaliation, social stigma and paucity of social and economic rehabilitation. In this backdrop, judicial appreciation of victim’s evidence must be marked by sensitivity and realism.

iv. If on such nuanced appreciation, the version of the victim appears to be credible and convincing, a conviction may be maintained on her sole testimony. A victim of sex trafficking, particularly a minor, is not an accomplice and her deposition is to be given due regard and credence as that of an injured witness.

"The instant case lays bare the deeply disturbing reality of child trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation in India, an offence that strikes at the very foundations of dignity, bodily integrity and the State’s constitutional promise of protection to every child against exploitation leading to moral and material abandonment. The facts before us are not isolated aberrations but form part of a wider and entrenched pattern of organised exploitation that continues to flourish despite legislative safeguards," a bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Joymalya Bagchi noted in its judgment.

The case before court stemmed from a complaint by one H. Sidappa who had received information from NGO workers, Tojo and Dominic that minor girls were being kept for prostitution at a rented house in Peenya, T. Dasarahalli, Bangalore. After a raid was conducted, written complaint bearing FIR No. 778/2010 was filed at Peenya Police Station, Bangalore against Kirankumar and his wife u/s. 366A, 372, 373 & 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 r/w. s.3, 4, 5, 6 and 9 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956. Charge-sheet was filed u/s. 366A, 372, 373 & 34, IPC r/w. s. 3, 4, 5 & 6, ITPA.

Case Title: K.P. Kirankumar @ Kiran vs. State by Peenya Police

Bench: Justices Misra and Bagchi

Judgment Date: December 19, 2025